


This, Undone

by lunabee34 (Lorraine)



Category: Live Free or Die Hard
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Closeted Character, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-08
Updated: 2009-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-04 07:02:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorraine/pseuds/lunabee34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I wanted to read a story where McClane couldn't accept his feelings for Matt; when I couldn't find one, I decided to write it myself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This, Undone

The first time McClane touches Matt is on a Friday at 11:30 and McClane is drunk. Sloppy, wobbly, squinty drunk. He's been throwing back Coors all night like he's on a mission, and Matt guesses something pretty shitty must have happened on the beat today, but Matt knows better than to ask. Matt's a little buzzed himself, his knee pleasantly numb for once, and he's just glad whatever went down left McClane in one piece this time.

McClane is sprawled out over his half of the couch, his legs splayed wide, beer can balanced on his belly. His knee rests on Matt's good one, this concentration of warmth that Matt resolutely ignores. Matt does that a lot actually. Ignore McClane. He's taught himself not to let his eyes linger on the sharp edge of McClane's jaw or the hard curves of his shoulders. And Matt absolutely does not acknowledge how sexy McClane's hands are—his wide palms, thick blunt fingers, nails cut down almost to the quick. No, Matt doesn't see that at all.

They're watching _Ninja Warrior_ and the gas station attendant has just successfully navigated the Spider Walk when McClane's hand falls clumsily into Matt's lap. It slides haltingly up Matt's thigh, along the inner seam of his jeans, until McClane's nails scrape against Matt's zipper.

Matt looks at McClane. His eyes are closed, the beer can rising and falling with each uneven breath he takes.

Matt is shocked. Spectacularly, unbelievably shocked, but he gets with the program pretty fast considering. He pulls the Coors from McClane's loose grip and sets it on the coffee table. McClane still doesn't open his eyes, but his fingers stroke Matt lightly through his Levi's, and Matt figures that's all the talking about this they're going to do.

Matt unzips McClane's jeans and reaches inside, his fingers curling around McClane's cock. McClane takes a shuddering breath and white knuckles the couch cushion. Matt grins. He leans over to kiss McClane but McClane turns his head and Matt's lips skate down the stubble on McClane's cheek, down the long stretch of his throat. Matt sucks up the blood on McClane's collarbone, working his hand along the hot length of McClane's cock, dragging his thumb through the bead of wetness at the tip. McClane rubs Matt through his jeans, jerky strokes that seem unsure and desperate, and Matt's kinda glad McClane's struggling because if not he'd have blown his wad before this whole thing really even started. As it is, neither of them last very long. McClane's cock jerks in Matt's hand and McClane makes this obscene noise in the back of his throat and bucks his hips up into the air and Matt loses it too. Matt presses his forehead into McClane's shoulder until his heart stops jackrabbiting in his chest.

When Matt pulls back to smile at McClane, the expression on McClane's face is awful—confused, devastated, lost. "I don't . . . I mean, this is not something I ever . . . I'm not . . ." McClane stutters helplessly.

"It's okay," Matt lies, ducking his head and scooting as far away from McClane as the couch will allow. He feels a little like crying and more than a little like throwing up and he doesn't think he's ever been more embarrassed in his entire life.

Matt spends the night on McClane's couch, his face smashed into cushions that smell like sex and cigarettes and McClane. He doesn't think he'll sleep, but he does. The next morning, McClane fries Matt eggs and calls him kid and it's like the past eight hours never happened at all.

Matt thinks that after this McClane won't want him around anymore but he's wrong. McClane still calls him up to watch bad TV and takes him for lunch at these obscure burger dives in the city just like always. Matt expects McClane to be awkward, but he's not. He's cool, a little distant, exactly as he was in those first hours leading up to the fire sale. Sometimes, though, Matt catches McClane staring at him when he thinks Matt won't notice, and for the first time since he met him Matt has absolutely no desire to know what McClane is thinking.

A long time ago, Matt learned to take what he can get and screw the rest so he tamps down the ache in his belly when McClane very carefully does not let their fingers touch as he passes the salt or the ketchup. Matt tries to forget McClane's pulse beating erratically beneath his tongue, the hitch in McClane's breath when he came, how for a too brief moment Matt felt wanted. He's not very successful.

Matt doesn't stop spending time with McClane but he starts hanging out more with Lucy and her friends, going to clubs and bars, the movies. He lets some bald man with a scar on his neck suck his dick in the bathroom of a pub and decides with McClane's name in his mouth that this plan is really counterproductive. So Matt goes on a few dates with a guy from Lucy's Victorian Lit class instead and he knows that information will filter through Lucy to McClane. Maybe this way they can at least get back the friendship they had before McClane's three beer queer fucked everything up.

Ben usually wants to dance whenever they go out. Matt's not a great dancer, but he likes it, the sweaty press of bodies against him, the slow thrum of bass in his bones, the sheer abandon of giving himself over to the music. Tonight, the DJ plays mostly slow music—a sweet grind of his hips against Ben's, his thumbs hooked through Ben's belt loops—and Matt thinks for the first time that this thing with Ben could be something besides Operation Get Over McClane.

The music switches to techno, but Matt and Ben keep swaying to their own tempo, Ben's teeth working the skin below Matt's ear, his hand sliding under Matt's shirt and over his ribs. Then from out of nowhere McClane taps Matt on the shoulder and says, "Come on, Farrell. We got work to do."

"What?" Matt says, watching the lights turn McClane's face into blocks of green and blue. "You gotta be kidding me. What kinda work?"

"Hi, Lucy's dad," Ben says and grins.

McClane barely acknowledges Ben's presence. "Stuff left over from the fire sale. Get your ass in gear, kid."

"Jesus. You got cab fare?" he asks Ben and then leans over and kisses him. Matt watches McClane while he sucks gently on Ben's bottom lip and McClane's eyes tell Matt everything he needs to know.

They thread their way through the dance floor in silence, and Matt hails Ben a cab before he follows McClane across the parking lot to his car. He waits until McClane buckles up and turns the key in the ignition and then Matt explodes. "What the hell is wrong with you? There's no work, is there?"

McClane puts the car back in park and looks out the window. "No."

"You don't want me." It hurts Matt to say the words aloud and he really hopes McClane doesn't hear the quaver in his voice, but it's true and it needs to be said. "You could have me whenever but you don't want me. So what's with the cock block, McClane?"

When McClane finally looks at him, Matt can hardly breathe. The naked emotion on McClane's face is unbearable, disturbing.

"Couldn't stand seeing that asshole's hands all over you. Couldn't stand it." McClane clutches the steering wheel and clears his throat and it occurs to Matt that McClane has been equally miserable these past weeks.

Matt should get a grim kind of satisfaction from that realization and instead all he can muster is pity. McClane is the biggest badass Matt's ever met—he shot Gabriel through his own shoulder for Christ's sake and saved the world pretty nearly all on his lonesome more times than Matt wants to contemplate—and Matt never thought he'd see McClane pathetic and humiliated because he's too afraid to take what he wants.

"John," Matt says, all the anger stripped from his voice. "You, me. This is never gonna happen, is it?"

For a long time, McClane doesn't answer him. When he finally does speak, McClane's voice is almost inaudible. "No," McClane says.

Matt nods. That's pretty much what he expected. "I'll get a cab," he says and opens the car door.

McClane hauls him back before his foot even touches the curb, drags him over into the driver's seat and holds him there. "Just once," he says, brokenly. "Just this one time." And then he kisses Matt—frantically, messily, as if he will never kiss anyone ever again and has to make this kiss count. They kiss until Matt's lungs ache for air, until his hands ache to touch more than just McClane's t-shirt, until his heart aches with how perfect McClane's mouth feels moving wetly against his own.

Finally, Matt pulls away and this time when he opens the door, McClane lets him go. Matt hails a cab and doesn't look behind him, not even once. He's proud of that. Matt goes over to Ben's place and they play _Assassin's Creed_ and watch the tail end of _Predator_ on SciFi and fuck on the living room floor. After, they squeeze into Ben's tiny bed and Matt lays awake until the early morning, Ben's cold feet tucked between his calves.


End file.
